When I heard him talk about his relationship with Carl Sagan and how he was one of the very few people that were willing to invest time and energy in him as a black man in STEM at the time he made a little more sense to me. I feel like having to fight for it has probably made him a lil crispy around the edges.

Me listening to my dementia patient rant about “that awful bitch that was in my room an hour ago” (it was me).

E Major

I work with a vulnerable population. In addition to every job doing piss testing my fingerprints and DNA get recorded and checked against unsolved assaults / murders. Nothing ever comes up but I always worry I’m gonna be like the last person that touched a vase before the dude that bashed somebody’s head in with it and the dude who did it isn’t in any databases and I’m gonna have to answer a bunch of intrusive questions.

I also love that book so you’re not special. Take that.

The part of the US I’m in its associated with sketchy dudes cheating on their girlfriends. Or maybe that’s just my social circle.

oooh that’s a thought. I thought it was gonna be more like what their poop / excretions smell like because maybe some of them smell like those things they don’t like but now I’m wondering if it’s the other way around?

Yeah like. I’ll google stuff on his phone if it’s within reach and mine’s not but like. I’m not combing through his messages or anything that seems exhausting. That seems like the most normal level of openness to me cuz he’s not afraid but I’m also not looking.

Mindbridge was pretty good iirc.

…but if you’re on warfarin, don’t like, suddenly eat a bunch more than usual.

The good bit from the article (not that the methodology isn’t interesting):

What mosquitoes did – and didn’t – like

Each species showed clear preferences when it came to the odors and skin bacteria.

Aedes aegypti showed a slight preference for men over women, while the other two mosquito species did not discriminate on the basis of sex. The reasons for this are not clear, and the differences in odors and skin microbes between men and women were too great for us to tease out any individual factors driving mosquito attraction.

Aedes aegypti preferred people that had less of certain odors like cyclic alcohols, which are ingredients in some fragrances and cosmetic products. But they were attracted to people on whom Staphylococcus bacteria was more abundant. Meanwhile, lower attraction was associated with certain Pseudomonas bacteria.

Aedes albopictus was a little less picky, preferring people with plenty of odors. They particularly sought out people with high amounts of organic compounds called ketones. One of their favorite ketones was mesityl oxide, which has a sweet, honeylike odor. These mosquitoes also preferred people with more skin microbes, particularly when bacteria like Streptococcus intermedius and Anaercoccus octavius were in higher abundance.

But they also avoided certain bacteria, like the Mogibacterium genus. We suspect that these bacteria may produce odors that these mosquitoes don’t like.

Much like Aedes aegypti, Culex quinquefasciatus picked participants that had fewer odors overall. They were attracted to monoterpenes like alpha-pinene, which are organic compounds often found in essential oils.

Interestingly, there were no bacteria that were associated with high attraction for Culex quinquefasciatus, but there was a high abundance of the bacteria genus Actinomyces on the participants that were low attraction to these mosquitoes.

The results weren’t all differences: Some odors and bacteria were attractive across all three species. For example, all three were attracted to participants with the odor chemical ethyl 2-methylbutanoate, a fruity scent often found in fragrances. And all three species were less attracted to participants with lots of the odor 1-penten-3-ol, a chemical typically used in fresh- or crisp-scented products.

We also found that some skin bacteria were attractive across all three species. For example, people with more Corynebacterium kefirresidentii living on their skin were highly attractive to all the mosquitoes.

You know what’s an underrated ship? Rick Sanchez and Stanford Pines.

My family did this after hamstringing my ability to interact with the outside world by raising me fundie and teaching me ideologies that were incompatible with the outside world and that men would just like randomly attack me. Eventually I got a job with criminally insane men which bizarrely really leveled up my social skills then they put me through nursing school and now that I’m financially independent I don’t speak to them. Consequently my recommendation is to do a horribly unpleasant job for a few years, get through a trade school if you can, and once you’re financially independent cut contact. Best of luck!

And 10-20 years ago a licensed RN working for a university hospital would’ve been solid enough to afford an apartment in that city while the hospital paid for the bachelor’s. That’s… getting less doable. And I don’t want them paying for the bachelor’s in case the boss starts telling me I gotta do sketchy shit and I have to jump ship suddenly. Let’s not even get into how a CNA is considered a “starter job” for a student of some higher paid healthcare position instead of it’s own perfectly respectable career that’s vital to the safe functioning of a decent hospital and as such has always deserved a wage that can feed kids.

Interestingly I have a fair amount of patients who cry more as they’re coming out of their depression than when they were in the thick of it.

Should’ve also had “I’m a teenage boy trying to impress his girlfriend in the passenger seat.”

You know, most multicellular organisms don’t have a vagina, but most of them DO have an anus. Something to think about.

Chris Hansen corrupting evidence has entered the chat. I’m serious having worked with child sex offenders I find most people’s hatred to be either slightly on the performative side or just an excuse to feel better by hating someone lesser (not that they’re wrong) but in a way that prevents the label from being applied accurately and effectively and prevents the actual victims from receiving justice. Interfering with the correct evidence collection processes leads to victims not receiving justice and pushing back against the requirement for that evidence in the first place just allows the accusation to be used politically. And the worse the punishment the less likely their loved ones are to turn them in and the more likely they are to kill the child to cover it up. People should feel confident that their loved one (even evil people have them) will be safely and humanely removed from society when they turn them in. That’s how kids get justice. But it doesn’t FEEL as righteously invigorating, so we don’t.

If you do seek emergency mental health help, don’t use an emergency department as your FIRST choice. Try crisis stabilization or other emergency mental health service first, ED second if you can’t find one or they won’t take you. If you can find a psych-specific ED that’s also a good option but the keyword there is psych specific. Try to avoid a general ED if you can. Some good search terms (for anglophones anyway) are:

• crisis stabilization
• crisis services
• mental health
• behavioral health
• psych / psychiatric
• crisis hotline

You might also pair those search terms with emergency / unit.

A non-psych ED is limited in what services they can offer you. ED staff are not good at much more than rapid stabilization and often have poor psych-specific training. The main psych skill they’re trained / equipped for is rapidly medicating, which could be necessary, but might also be an overreaction in your case. It may also take a while to do a bed search for an appropriate psych bed and an ED is a very overstimulating environment for a person who is manic. If you wind up needing that it is what it is, but you’ll probably get better care if you try to find a psych specific emergency service in your community if at all possible.

Also try to make and take a Safety Plan with you. It will help them make sure you don’t wind up at a more intensive / intrusive level of care than you really need to be at.

That’s how they get you.